The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam Papyras Classics

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Chapter 6

Preface

AN ANALYSIS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD'S TRANSLATION OF THE QUATRAINS OF OMAR KHAYYAM (Fifth Edition) By EDWARD HERON-ALLEN

The object with which this volume has been compiled has been to set at rest, once and for ever, the vexed question of how far Edward FitzGerald's incomparable poem may be regarded as a translation of the Persian originals, how far as an adaptation, and how far as an original work. In the Introduction to my recently published translation of the Ouseley MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and more particularly in the Essay which terminates the second edition of that work, I have dwelt at considerable length upon the history of Edward FitzGerald's poem and the influences of various Oriental works which are traceable in it. As it is doubtful whether the present volume will reach the hands of, or at any rate be critically considered by, any students of the poem who have not already had access to my former work, I do not think that it would be either expedient or useful to repeat in this place the information which is collected there, but a short history of the major portion of Edward FitzGerald's material is necessary, for the purpose of showing why this question of translation, adaptation, or original composition should have been a question open to lengthy argument, and why it has been impossible to set it at rest until the present time, when forty years have elapsed since first Edward FitzGerald's poem attracted the attention of those great scholars and poets who rescued it, as recounted in the threadbare anecdote, from the oblivion of the penny box.

The influence of the Ouseley MS. upon the poem forms the subject of the volume to which I have referred, and, save in so far as it recurs in the parallels which give excuse for the present work, may be dismissed, but the doubts which have sprung up as to the extent to which Edward FitzGerald took, as his editor, Mr. Aldis Wright, says, «great liberties with the original,» have arisen in consequence of the vicissitudes which have befallen the rest of the material from which the poet worked during the construction of his first edition. We know that Prof. Cowell made a copy of the Ouseley MS. for Edward FitzGerald just before he went to India in August, 1856. In another letter he says «I got a copy made for him from the one MS. in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Library at Calcutta soon after I arrived in November, 1856. It reached FitzGerald June 14th, 1857, as I learn by a note in his writing. Some time after this I sent him a copy of that rare Calcutta printed edition which I got from my Munshi.» To possess oneself therefore of full information as to what material Edward FitzGerald really worked from in making the original edition of his poem, it was necessary to consult, line by line, and word by word, the Calcutta MS. (noted as No. 1548 in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Library) and the Calcutta printed edition of 1836,—in addition, of course, to the Ouseley MS. Prof. Cowell most generously placed at my disposal his copy of the Calcutta MS., but, as he himself has recorded, the copy was made by an inferior scribe in a hand which is exceedingly difficult to read. I therefore communicated with Mr. A.T. Pringle, Director of Indian Records in the Home Department at Calcutta, himself a keen and critical student of Omar Khayyam, with a view to getting either a photographic reproduction, or a clean copy of this MS. made for me. Careful search and widely spread enquiry brought to light the fact that the MS. was lost, stolen, or strayed, so that Prof. Cowell's copy was the only record left of this portion of Edward FitzGerald's material. This copy I sent out to India, and had copied by a good writer, a copy being made at the same time to replace that which had been stolen.

I next addressed myself to the discovery of «that rare Calcutta printed edition,» of whose existence, after searching in vain every European State library and many others, and every library in India of which I could learn, I began to have grave doubts, thinking that Prof. Cowell had inadvertently confused it with an edition lithographed simultaneously at Calcutta and Teheran in 1836. In the summer, however, when I had given up all hope, one of Mr. Pringle's clerks picked up a copy of the long sought book in the Bazar at Calcutta, printed from type at Calcutta in 1836. A circumstance that greatly adds to the interest of this discovery, whilst at the same time it very greatly lessened my labours, lies in the fact that this edition is evidently printed from the lost Calcutta MS. itself, both introduction and quatrains being identical in readings and sequence. A few quatrains, including the repetitions, forming part of the MS. and nearly all those written in the margins of the MS. are omitted, but nearly all of these are added as an appendix to the book, the printer explaining in a short note that they were found in a bayaz (or book of extracts), and were added in that place instead of in their diwan (or alphabetical) order on account of their more than ordinarily antinomian tendency. A very interesting question arises hereon, whether these latter were printed into the book from the margins of the MS. after being purposely or accidentally omitted, or whether they were written on to the margin of the MS. from this book at some date between 1836 and 1856. I think that the former is the more likely explanation, but in the absence of the MS. this question cannot be solved.

I find myself therefore in the interesting position of having the whole of FitzGerald's material before me; and though (so perfectly did Edward FitzGerald identify himself with his author's habit of mind) many other MSS. contain quatrains that closely resemble his marvellous paraphrase, there is nothing written by or attributed to Omar Khayyam which served FitzGerald for inspiration in making his first edition, other than what is to be found in the three, or rather two, texts above referred to. I have spoken already (and at length, in the Terminal Essay to my former volume) of the influences exerted by other Oriental poets upon his work, and especially that of the Mantik ut-tair, or Parliament of Birds of Ferid ud din Attar; where it was direct or exclusive I have set it down in the parallels which follow. The result of my observations may be summarised as follows:

Of Edward FitzGerald's quatrains, forty-nine are faithful and beautiful paraphrases of single quatrains to be found in the Ouseley or Calcutta MSS., or both.

Forty-four are traceable to more than one quatrain, and therefore may be termed «composite» quatrains.

Two are inspired by quatrains found by FitzGerald only in Nicolas' text.

Two are quatrains reflecting the whole spirit of the original poem.

Two are traceable exclusively to the influence of the Mantik ut-tair of Ferid ud din Attar.

Two quatrains primarily inspired by Omar were influenced by the Odes of Hafiz.

And three, which appeared only in the first and second editions and were afterwards suppressed by Edward FitzGerald himself, are not—so far as a careful search enables me to judge—attributable to any lines of the original texts. Other authors may have inspired them, but their identification is not useful in this case.

The «fillip,» so to speak, given to FitzGerald's interest in the ruba'iyat, by the publication of Monsieur J.B. Nicolas' text and translation of 464 «Les Quatrains de Khèyam» (Paris, 1867), must not be lost sight of, and may be held responsible for many, if not most of the variations and additions that differentiate the second, third, and fourth editions from the first. This volume, as FitzGerald himself records in his Introduction to the second and subsequent editions, «reminded him of several things and instructed him in others.» Two of FitzGerald's later quatrains at least (Nos. 46 and 98) come from that text, and these I have never seen in any MS. text; and, in seeking the parallels to the present volume, I have collated exactly 5,235 ruba'iyat in the original Persian. I have appended to every Persian ruba'i in the following pages, references to the texts in which I have found the same ruba'i, in the identical form, or more or less varied, and it will be observed that, for the most part, the ruba'iyat which inspired FitzGerald are those which have so appealed to the Oriental mind as to be represented in nearly all the MSS. and texts under examination. The Ouseley MS. being the first text that occupied FitzGerald's attention, where his inspirational lines occur both in that MS. and the Calcutta MS., I have given the Ouseley MS. version, noting any important variations to be found in the Calcutta MS. It will be observed that FitzGerald's tendency, after the second edition, was to eliminate quatrains which were merely suggested by the general tone and sentiment of the original poem, and not the reflection or translation of particular and identifiable ruba'iyat. The reader is especially recommended, when studying these parallels, to turn to the corresponding quatrain in the first edition, for FitzGerald often diverged further from the originals in making his subsequent variations—notably, for instance, in the first and forty-eighth quatrains.

With regard to my own translations of the originals in the following pages, I may remark that the excessive baldness of the translation is intentional, for I deemed it better to put before the lovers of FitzGerald's poem the closest and most unpolished English rendering, rather than to attempt to clothe the literal meaning of the originals in graceful phraseology.

I desire to record in this place my most cordial thanks, for the invaluable assistance they have given me in the preparation of this volume, to Mr. A.T. Pringle, Professor E.B. Cowell, and Dr. E. Denison Ross, and to Mr. Aldis Wright, Edward FitzGerald's literary executor, and his publishers Messrs. Macmillan, for their very kind permission to reproduce in this volume the poem which has brought it into existence.

EDWARD HERON-ALLEN.